This application is for a continuing institutional grant designed to provide research training for 6 predoctoral and 3 postdoctoral trainees with research interests in communication disorders and sciences. Training prepares trainees to become active and responsible members of the scientific community. Hands-on apprenticeship training is provided in three interrelated areas: 1) Speech Production, Development, and Disorders: Lifespan Perspective (with special attention to sensorimotor processes in speech, and speech disorders from development through aging); 2) Language Structure, Development and Disorders: Single Language and Crosslinguistic Studies (including specific language impairment and American Sign language); and 3) Peripheral and Central Processing of Speech and Non-Speech Stimuli (with special reference to otoacoustic emissions and cochlear modeling). Trainees in these areas will be offered two "feeder" specialties: Cognitive Neuroscience (including imaging of normal and brain-damaged individuals) and Linguistics Applied to Communication Sciences and Disorders. Participating faculty routinely collaborate on projects that cut across these research areas. Advanced courses are available in communication disorders, research design, statistics, neurosciences, biology, engineering, and linguistics. However, the main purpose of the training program is to provide intensive interactive research experience leading toward establishment of successful independent clinical investigators.